In primary school, a student's relationship with his or her teacher has a significant impact on the student's academic progress. Students with positive relationships are more engaged and learn more (e.g., Hughes et al, 2008). In addition, teachers are more likely to have negative relationships with boys than with girls (e.g., Hamre & Pianta, 2001).

Previous research has not, however, accounted for the gender of the teacher. Perhaps conflict is more likely when teacher and student are of different sexes, and because there are more female than male teachers, we end up concluding that boys tend not to get along with their teachers.

Dependency Clinginess on the part of the student; sample item "This child asks for my help when he or she really does not need help."

All in all, the data did not support the idea that boys connect emotionally with male teachers.

For Closeness, female teachers generally felt closer to their students than male teachers. Male teachers did not feel closer to either boys or girls, but female teachers felt closer to girls than they did to boys.

For Conflict, female teachers reported less conflict than male teachers did. Both male and female teachers reported less conflict with girls than with boys.

For Dependency, female teachers reported less dependency than male teachers did. There were no differences among boys and girls on this measure.

This research has been difficult to conduct, simply because most groups of teachers don't have enough male teachers in elementary grades to conduct a meaningful analysis. This is just one study, but the results indicate that all teachers--male and female--have a tougher time with boys. More conflictual relationships are reported with boys than with girls, and female teachers report less close relationships with boys.

When I saw you out and about it today it reminded me that I found this blog post very interesting! Not sure if you know this, but Helma Koomen is actually visiting faculty with CASTL right now-- she's been here all semester and is heading back to Amsterdam in two weeks. She was delighted to see you picked up her article. I sat down and talked with her about her this topic and am looking at this teacher gender-match idea in US populations. Interesting stuff!

Dan Willingham

5/11/2012 05:53:24 am

wow, had no idea she was here. . .glad she didn't think I misrepresented the work :)